


Mac + Drugs + Riley + Braids

by Project7723



Series: five times mac looks out for his phoenix family, and one time they look out for him [2]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Because I Couldn't Find Any Drugged!Riley Fics, Drugged!Riley, Fluff, Gen, Hair Washing, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Papa Jack Stories, Patient!Mac, Platonic Bedsharing, These Aren't Les Hair Product Inaccuracies You're Looking For
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29486859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project7723/pseuds/Project7723
Summary: The one where Riley is high as a kite and Mac washes her hair and puts her to bed.
Relationships: Riley Davis & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Series: five times mac looks out for his phoenix family, and one time they look out for him [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2114061
Comments: 21
Kudos: 77





	Mac + Drugs + Riley + Braids

**Author's Note:**

> So, um. Hello, hi. White girl, here. I have never touched hair relaxer in my life, and I didn't have a way to research it while I was writing. But I checked up on it, and now I'm almost positive that it's like. Never found in conditioner??? I should probably have taken that bit out, but I loved the dialogue it spawned, so. If you are a person familiar with these things, feel free to leave reality at the door, and I hope you can enjoy it anyway?
> 
> This is set in early season 2.

Mac lets out a grunt as his previously limp burden shifts in his hold, throwing him off balance. He bumps against a tree to regain his balance and instantly regrets it when the rough bark digs into a bruise. “If you’re not gonna stay still, the least you could do is wake up,” he grumbles to the weight in his arms. “You know, so I’m not all alone in the woods. At night. In the dark.”

His burden snorts. “You’re af—fraid of the dark, Mac?”

A smirk. “Morning, Riles. Glad you finally decided to join us. Well, me, anyway.” He turns to the side as he eases their way over a fallen tree. “And to answer your question, when the dark is full of people trying to kill me, yeah, I can be a little leery.”

Riley’s brow puckers in a way that makes her look about fifteen years younger as she considers his answer. “Yeah, okay. Tha’s fair.”

Mac frowns at the slur in her words. The drugs will probably take awhile to clear her system. “How are you feeling?”

She grins up at him and slings the arm that had been trailing down his back around his shoulders, squeezing in what would have been a side hug except that he’s carrying her bridal style. “I’m great, Mac. _Peachyyy_.” She hums. “How are you?” It’s casual, conversational, as if they’re at a lunch meeting rather than running for their lives through a forest that is reminding him more and more of Mirkwood.

“I’ve...had better days.”

“Not me. I’m _peaaachyyy._ ”

“You mentioned that. That would be whatever sedative was in that dart Lebeau hit you with.”

“Hmm. That’s nice. This is nice. We should go hiking more often.”

Mac lets out a huff. “Not like this, we shouldn’t.”

“Wha’s wrong with this?” She looks so genuinely confused—almost hurt—that Mac swallows his sarcastic reply.

“Well, not that I don’t love the idea of going on a hike with you, Riles, but, uh,” another grunt as he narrowly misses losing his footing in a dried-up stream bed, “I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re not hiking. I’m hiking. And no offense, but you weigh about three times what my usual hiking gear does.”

“Oh.” Riley lifts her head from his shoulder, seeming to notice for the first time that she’s being carried. She looks perplexed for a moment before lifting one shoulder in a careless shrug. “What d’you want me to say, Bozer makes good cake. Oooh! _Cake_. Can we get cake when we get home? Wait, no. _Ice cream c_ ake.”

Mac chuckles but decides to save his breath as the ground begins to slope uphill.

“Hey,” Riley sits up a bit and pokes her finger into his cheek. “Wha’s this?”

Mac winces as she continues to prod at the tender spot. “Just a bruise. It’ll be okay. Hey, stop that. Stop that.”

“How’d you get a bruise?” She stumbles over the last word.

“Got hit.”

She sits up a little higher, something like indignation flashing through her eyes and making her look like a kid who’d had their favorite toy stolen. “Who hit you?”

Mac shakes his head, panting slightly as he tops the hill. “Same guy who drugged you.”

“Hmm. Drugsss. I guess that’s why I’m feeling so...high.” She relaxes into him again, her warm forehead pressing against his neck.

“Safe bet.”

They go on in silence for a while as Mac focuses on navigating the rough terrain, pausing every few minutes to listen for their pursuers.

He’s just beginning to think they’ve lost them when he hears a branch snap a ways behind them. Riley startles from the doze she’s fallen into as he darts behind a patch of bushes, sitting down as quietly as possible and pulling her head back down to his shoulder to halt her attempts to sit up and look around.

“Wha’s goin’ on, Mac? You’re not us—su—sually this...cuddles.”

Mac clamps a hand over her mouth, leaning down so his mouth is by her ear. “Gotta be quiet, Riles. Bad guys are looking for us, and they’re close.”

He watches as the look in her eyes goes from shocked offense to something close to understanding. She responds to his silent question with a nod and he moves his hand away.

Another branch snaps, closer this time, and Riley leans the back of her head against his shoulder, blinking lazily up at the treetops.

It’s a good ten minutes before the sounds creep past them and fade into silence. Mac peeks over the top of the bushes, scanning their surroundings for another three before he’s satisfied it’s safe to come out. He relaxes against the trunk behind him and blows out a breath he’d been holing long enough to make him lightheaded.

Riley shifts against him. “Safe now?”

“I think so.”

Riley huffs. “Took ‘em long enough.”

Mac almost laughs as he sits up again, bringing her with him. “You have somewhere else to be?”

A sigh. “Anywhere but here. This is booooring. B-O-R…” A surprised frown. “B-O…” A snort that dissolves into a fit of giggles. “B.O.”

Mac can’t help the chuckle that escapes this time as he stands and stretches the cricks from his cramped muscles. “You’re awfully calm for someone running from bad guys with guns in the middle of the night. They were about two feet away from us at one point.”

She holds her arms out to be picked up—looking more like a toddler than should be possible for a twenty-five year old woman. He shakes his head, an exasperated smile curling his lips as he obliges with a grunt.

“They don’ scare me,” she declares confidently from where her face is buried in his shoulder, arms twined tightly about his neck.

“Oh, really?”

“Well, maybe if I’as by m’self. But Mac’s here.” Her hair tickles his neck as she shakes her head. “I mean, you. _You’re_ here.”

Mac stops and looks down at her, his heart clenching at the trust she places in him. Her eyes have slipped closed and she sighs in her sleep. He can’t help but wonder how long it would be before he lets her down and loses that trust. He always lets people down eventually.

“Why we stoppin’?”

Not sleeping then. “Nothing, sorry.” He shuffles forward again, eyes on the bit of sky that is beginning to lighten pink with the dawn. “Hang tight, Riles. We’re almost to exfil.

*******

“My hair is gross.”

Riley’s voice sounds suspiciously close to a sob as it filters through the bathroom door to Mac where he waits, sat in the hallway in case an emergency intervention is required. He frowns.

“I mean, you’re showering, so...wash it.”

There’s a pause. “I forgot.”

“You forgot?”

“Yeah.” She sounds disappointed with herself. “I got out an’ I...forgot. It’s _bad_ , man. Like _really_ bad. I think—there are defini-nally cobwebs in here.”

“Well, the water’s still running, right? So why not just get back in?”

“I got dressed already.” Another pause. A clatter. Mac sits up a little straighter. “Annnnd my arms—my arms aren’t...arming.”

Mac smothers his laugh in his knuckles. “That’s okay, Riles. Doc McClain said it might be a few hours before your motor skills are back to normal.”

“My hair can’t wait a few hours, man,” she all but wails. “It’s _nasty!”_

“Okay, well…” Mac considers. “You’re dressed?”

A beat. A sniffle. “Uh-huh.”

“Is it alright if I come in?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, coming in.” He pushes the door open and pokes his head in to find Riley sat cross-legged in the floor with one arm draped over the closed toilet lid and the other resting on the side of the tub, a picture of utter dejection. She’s wearing Jack’s Army sweatshirt with Mac’s flannel pajama pants and he steps fully inside, closing the door behind him and leaning against it.

A few strands of hair—and he can’t deny its rattiness—hang in her eyes as she looks up at him. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

Riley’s chin trembles. “Bein’ drugged _sucks.”_

“Yeah. It does.” He kneels next to her and turns on the tub. “Let’s see if we can make it suck a little less, huh?”

“What’re you doin’?”

“I was gonna wash your hair. Is that okay?”

She thinks for a moment, chewing her lip. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Mac lets the water run as he grabs a few towels from the closet, draping one around her shoulders and folding the other one over the tub’s edge. “Wanna lean back for me?”

Riley scoots closer and sits against the towel with her head tipped back. Mac checks the water’s temperature before reaching up for the hand-held showerhead and diverting the water. Riley sighs contentedly as he runs the stream over her head.

“How do you feel about smelling like—” Mac checks the label on the shampoo bottle and makes a face, “citrus pine?”

Riley’s forehead scrunches under his palm that had guarded her eyes against the warm spray of water. “Tha’s a thing?”

“That is definitely not a thing.”

“Then wha’s it supposed to smell like?”

“Jack, I guess. This is his.”

“Oh. Okay. _Ándale_ , Mac.”

Mac let out an incredulous bark. _“Ándale?_ You speak Spanish now?”

“I know enough to know what _ándale_ means,” Riley shrugs.

“Fair enough.” Mac squeezes a generous portion into his palm and begins gently massaging it into Riley’s hair. Lather builds up quickly and she lets out another sigh of contentment.

“Jack did this for me once,” she mumbles, eyes closed.

“Yeah?”

“When I was in fourf—fourf—when I was nine. An’ a half.” She shoots Mac a side-eye when he chuckles at her specificity. “I hurt my wrist and I wasn’t supposed to take the...the thing off.” She flops a hand around on a loose wrist. “So Jack helped me wash my hair.”

Mac hums in acknowledgment, thinking about various occasions when Jack had washed his own hair.

“You’re gentler than he was.”

“Oh, really?”

“Uh-huh.”

Mac runs his palm vigorously across her scalp, sending bubbles splattering against the walls and his clothes. “How’s that for gentle?”

Riley turns her face into his pant leg to protect her eyes and smother her giggles. “You’re _soooo_ funny.”

“I mean, you’re laughing.”

“Shut up.”

He chuckles and picks up the shower head to rinse his hands, placing one back over her forehead to keep the soap out of her eyes as he runs the water back through her hair. Riley closes her eyes and tips her head back, content to let him work. Only when he turns off the water and leans to grab the third towel does she crack an eye open to look at him quizzically.

“You’re done?”

Mac frowns. “I think so?” He runs a hand through her hair to check for any lingering soap. “Is there something else?”

“What about conditioner?”

“Oh. Uh...hang on. I think Bozer has some in his bathroom.” He gives her shoulder a squeeze as he stands. “Hang tight.”

“Hangin’.”

It takes a moment of searching, but Mac finds the conditioner in Bozer’s linen closet, on its side behind an impossibly large loofah. He waves it triumphantly as he re-enters his bathroom. "Got it. But, uh—” he frowns as he scans the directions. “I’m pretty sure when he got this Bozer told me—and I quote—‘never use this ever, under any circumstances,’ because I have ‘weak white-boy hair’ and if I use this it will all fall out.”

Riley laughed and held out her hand to check the label before remembering she could not currently see well enough to read. “I’s prob’ly got relaxer in it. Don’t worry, my hair is tough as nails.”

“Okay, but if you’re bald tomorrow it’s on you.” He starts to squeeze some into his palm and stops. “Uh. How much?”

“A lot.”

He hesitates. “‘A lot’ is a pretty relative term. Are we talking about like, a tablespoon or a fourth of a cup?”

She aims several slow blinks in his direction and he braces for a scathing remark. “I don’t usually bring my measuring cups into the shower with me, Angus.”

There it was. Mac shrugs helplessly. “I thought maybe you could approximate.”

“More than you think you need. A lot more.”

“That’s still not—here, just.” He holds his hands where she can see. “How about you just tell me when to stop?”

“Okay. There. Mm, a little more. Okay. That’s good.”

“Great. Now...where do I put it?”

“In my hair, genius.”

Mac rolls his eyes. “Nikki used to complain about her hair being oily if she put conditioner in her roots.”

“Nikki has weak white girl hair, too.” She makes a face. “Nikki has weak white...everything.” She reaches up to give his arm a few clumsy pats. “Well, _weak_ everything. You shouldn’t feel bad ‘bout bein’ white just because Nikki’s a horrible person.”

Mac snorts. “Thank you.”

“And I mean like, a _horrible_ person. Really, really, really, really, really, _really_ bad.”

“That’s not fair,” he defends lamely as he begins cautiously working the conditioner into her hair. “She was just doing her job.”

Riley squints at him. “Dude. Finding out she was a good guy who did what she did made me like her even less than I did when I thought she was a bad guy who did what she did.” She frowns. “Did that make sense? I can’t remember where that sentence started.”

“I think it did.” His fingers snag in a tangle and he gently works through it. “I never thought about it that way before. A lot of lives were on the line, though.” The tangle gives way and he moves on. “It was more important than just—it was important.”

Riley makes an exaggerated gagging sound. “There is literally nothing you can say that will make me like her any better, Mac. Give it a rest.”

He huffs. “Just trying to be fair.” The conditioner is spread evenly through her hair now and he falters. “What now?”

“Now we shut up about Nikki’s guts and never speak of her again. If we abs’lu’ly have to, we can call her She Who Shall Not be Named.”

Mac offers the shower wall a long-suffering blink. “I meant what’s next with your hair, Riles.”

“Oh. Um...are all the knots out?”

“I think so?”

“It’s okay if there are a few. I’m gonna brush it when we get done.”

“Okay, so I just rinse it?”

“Yup. My hair’s already tired and I did a deep condition last week, so. _Ándale,_ my dude.”

Mac shakes his head. “Your hair is _tired?”_

Riley frowns. “What?”

“You said your hair is already tired.”

“I meant...” her face takes on a look of deep concentration as she searches for the word. “Leraxed.”

“Relaxed?”

She snaps finger guns at him and makes a clicking sound through her teeth. “That’s the one. Can I go to sleep now?”

“Soon. Just wait till we get you to bed, please, so I don’t have to—” Riley’s head lolls to soak the knee of his sweatpants and a glance at her face confirms her slumber. His shoulders slump and he lets out a sigh. “—carry you again.”

When the last of the conditioner is washed away, Mac turns off the water and looks in dismay at the hair tangled around his fingers, coiled around his wrists, covering his hands. A flash of panic shoots through him at the sheer amount before the logic side of his brain kicks in. The average person loses one hundred to one hundred and fifty hairs per day, and Riley had not had a chance to wash her hair at all during their four-day mission. It was far more likely that this was a perfectly normal bodily system at work than that Bozer’s conditioner was causing her hair to fall out.

Still.

Mac gives a strand of hair an experimental tug. It holds. He tugs again, a little harder. It remains firmly rooted in Riley’s scalp and he blows out a breath of relief. “Jack would have killed me,” he mutters.

“Jack would have killed you for what?” Riley's head rolls back on the towel to blink up at him. “Why are you pulling my hair?”

“I thought maybe it was falling out.”

She rolls her eyes. “I told you. My hair’s tough as _nailsss.”_

“You did tell me that.” Mac does his best to lose the hair in the wastebasket, and is surprised at how difficult the slippery, curly strands are to shake loose. He eventually gives up and rinses his hands in the tub, vowing to clean out the drain later. “Did you wanna brush your teeth before bed, or anything?”

Riley makes a face. “I gotta do something with my hair or it’ll be craaaazy tomorrow.”

“Okay. Let’s get you off the floor, first, huh?”

Riley nods and holds her arms up as she had in the woods. Mac turns away to hide his smile and does his best to harden his face into a firm expression.

“Nope. Sorry, but I carried you all over a mountain earlier and my back is done. You’re awake and coherent, so you get to walk this time.”

She lets out a whine and flops her arms at him.

Mac cannot hold back his laughter this time, as he hooks his hands under her arms and pulls her upright. “Come on. Up you go.”

“You’re the worst.”

“I just washed your hair.”

“Still the worst.”

“I’m getting you to a bed.”

“You’re makin' me _walk_ to a bed.”

“Riley, I’m half-carrying you.”

She shoots him a smug grin that lets him know she is perfectly capable of taking on more of her weight than she is.

He narrows his eyes. “You’re the worst.”

She smiles sweetly. “I know.”

Once Riley is sat on the guest bed, Mac goes in search of a hairbrush and hair ties. He finds a wide-toothed comb in Bozer’s closet, but has to settle for a bit of yellow ribbon he finds in his roommate’s costume stash on the hair tie front.

“I couldn’t find a brush, but I got a comb.”

“Okie dokie, artichokie.”

“Uh, okay.” He sits beside her and passes her the comb.

“Thanks, man.” She sits there holding it, staring at it, but making no move to apply it to her hair.

Mac shakes his head and, with the distinct feeling that he’s being played, says, “Do you need help?”

She beams at him and passes him the comb. “You’re the best, Mac.”

“That’s funny. Five minutes ago I was the worst.”

“Five minutes is a long time. People change.”

Mac snorts. “Yeah, okay. Turn around.”

She obliges, still grinning, and he scoots across the bed to sit cross-legged behind her. He starts gently, working through the bottom-most tangles first. This, at least, is something he knows how to do. His own hair had hung below his shoulders before he joined the Army.

Riley slumped gradually forward as he worked, until her elbows rested on her knees and her face was plopped in her hands. “Will you braid it?” she pleads when he’s finished.

Mac blinks. “I can try.”

He’s never braided hair before, but he’s worked through the pattern that must go into it in his head before, and it seems simple enough. He thinks through the process it will require before taking two strands from either side of her head, above her ears, and crossing them. He adds another to the mix and weaves it in. He repeats this pattern one more time to make sure he’s got it right before he begins to add chunks of hair as he works his way to the base of her scalp. When he’s run out of hair to add, her the braid begins to coil into a thick rope in his quickly moving fingers.

He finds he enjoys the process. It’s satisfying. The braid goes as far as her layers will allow, but there’s still a good four inches of hair loose when the braid starts to fray and come loose where the shorter strands end. He reaches for the ribbon and loops it around a piece of the braid before crossing that part once more so it’s in-between the other two. He then crosses the ribbon and wraps it around a few times before tying it in a thick knot. It holds better than he expected and he tugs at the end of the braid to get Riley’s attention.

“How’s that?”

Riley reaches back and pats down her head before pulling the braid over her shoulder to examine it. “Cool beans.”

“Great. How about you get some sleep now, yeah?” Mac felt his own weariness pulling at him as he worked and he smothers a yawn as he speaks.

“Okay.” She flops backward, blinking dizzily when her head hits the pillow on the left side of the bed. “That was a bad move.”

Mac chuckles. “You’ll feel better after some sleep.”

“Yeah.”

Riley is almost no help as Mac wrestles the comforter out from beneath her. Once she’s tucked in, she curls onto her side and closes her eyes, a sleepy smile crossing her face. Mac can’t help running a hand over her still damp hair before he switches off the lamp and stands to leave.

He barely makes it to his feet, however, before Riley’s hand snags his wrist.

“Mac?”

“What’s the matter?” It takes a minute for his eyes to adjust enough to see her looking up at him, her eyes wide and shy.

“It’s dark.”

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you turn out the lights.”

“There are shapes over there.”

Mac regrets his sardonic reply. “Yeah, they’re just a few of Bozer’s props,” he assures gently.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Do you want me to turn on the light again, so you can check?”

Riley nods.

The light is clicked back on and she carefully scans her surroundings.

“Do you want me to look under the bed?”

Mac means it as a joke, but Riley’s soft “thanks” has him kneeling to check for monsters, spies, prison mates, or whatever else may haunt his friend’s dreams.

“All clear.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Okay.”

“I’m gonna turn of the light, now.”

Riley nods.

The lights go out.

“Mac?”

“Yeah, Riles.”

“Are they still props?”

“Yep. Just props.”

“Okay.”

He almost makes it to the door before she speaks again.

“Mac?”

He turns in the doorway.

“Will you—will you stay?” Her voice is very quiet.

“Till you’re asleep? Sure.” He sits next to her on the bed and she rolls onto her back to look up at him.

“No, will you just...stay?” She thunks a clumsy hand on the space beside her.

“Oh. Uh...sure. I can do that.”

He had showered and changed into a T-shirt and sweats while Riley was being checked out at the Phoenix, so he lies down next to her, mirroring her position. They lie like that, side by side, on their backs for a moment before her hand sneaks into his and he gives it a gentle squeeze.

“You’re gonna be okay, you know.”

“I know.” Riley curls toward him and presses a sloppy kiss to his eye. He barely aborts his flinch at the unexpected movement and the sudden wetness in such a sensitive area.

“That wasn’t your cheek, was it?”

“No.” Mac debates wiping his eye with his shirt but decides the risk of hurting her feelings is too high. “But that’s okay.”

“Thanks for takin’ care of me, buddy.” She pats his forehead. “You didn’t hafta do all that.”

“I wanted to, Riles.”

“Thanks. If you ever ge’drugged, I’ll wash your hair an’—an’ braid it. I don’ think I can carry you, but Jack can carry you and I can braid your hair.”

Mac hopes it’s too dark for her to see his smile. “Thank you, Riles. I appreciate that.”

She shifts closer and he turns to accommodate the face suddenly burrowing into his shoulder.

“You smell nice.”

His eyebrows climb. “Thanks. You, uh—you smell nice too.”

“I bet I smell like a man, huh.” Riley’s giggle is muffled in his shirt. “‘Cause I’m wearin’ your clothes an’ I used Jack’s shampoo an’ Bozer’s condish-ner.”

Mac chuckles. She does smell like his friends’ hair products, but mostly she just smells clean and familiar and...Riley.

The hands resting next to his chest grow slack as Riley’s breathing deepens. He brushes a kiss against her forehead and runs a hand over her hair. “Goodnight, Riles.”

Her only answer is a sleep-heavy sigh.

**Author's Note:**

> Shout-out to macs_paperclips, 'cause I'm not sure I would have considered the braiding were it not for a conversation we had a bit ago. And also to Anguish for debating the likelihood of Mac using conditioner with me like it was a normal topic. (Maybe he's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline.) 
> 
> [Personal Message: Boo of my Soul, if thou art reading this, I'm not dead! I'm just wifi-less, and mobile hotspot is only supporting browser stuff. Rude. I miss you so much it achessss.]


End file.
